10 Best Download Managers For Mac OS 2017-2018

Olga Weis22 July at 17:11

The top download manager for Mac is essential for every Mac user. Whenever you need to save something from the web to your computer, like videos, games, music, books, apps, download managers do a really great job, especially when the files are large.

Download managers offer lots of options suiting everyone's needs, but probably the best thing about these apps is that even if the download was interrupted for some reason, they can resume it from the point it was stopped at. This surely saves some time and traffic.

Look through this article featuring the list of best download managers for Mac, hopefully with Sierra support as soon as it is released.

Folx GO is easily in the top of Internet download managers thanks to how friendly it is and how many possibilities it offers. To make your downloading experience fast and effortless Folx GO can split downloads in threads, resume interrupted downloads, is very flexible in how you can add new tasks, and more. Each download can be assigned with a tag or multiple tags that characterize the content of this download, so that if you are searching for it even months later and don't remember the exact name of the file, you'll still find it easily thanks to tags.

Folx GO is generally free, but if you want advanced features, there is a PRO version with lots to enjoy:

Smart Speed control allows automatic speed control according to your Internet usage and lets you schedule certain speed limits for specific dates and time.

Download Scheduler will make sure your downloads start and stop at the time that you want them to, not whenever your computer is on.

Splitting downloads in up to 20 threads can significantly increase the download speed.

iTunes integration allows downloaded music and videos to be automatically added to iTunes in corresponding playlists.

Saving login and password for the most used trackers and websites saves your time when you just need the download to start right away and not bother with typing the password in.

You can get PRO features via in-app purchase option in the Mac App Store.

As an all-in-one download manager for Mac, 5KPlayer sports a smart kernel called "dynamic analyzer" to speed up online videos and music download in real terms. Subtitles adding function of this free download manager for Mac (macOS High Sierra or earlier supported) really adds spice to it as an one-stop download solution. This app allows its users to download videos ranging from 720p, 1080p to 4K while also playing 4K HD videos without alternating to another software application.

Jdownloader is an open source download manager for Mac that is platform-independent. It is written in Java, which can make it rather slow on startup. This manager is mainly optimized for one-click hosting and sharing solutions like Rapidshare or Megaupload. This app is great for someone who wants to paste encrypted links from third party websites.

The great thing about JDownloader is that you don't have to deal with the annoying waiting times when you are a free member of such service as Rapidshare. Queue as many files as you want and get notifications about download progress via a status bar.

Leech is a good option for those who want to manage downloads and maximize the speed. Its main focus is browsers integration. You have an option to set a username and password for corresponding servers. E.g. if you have a premium account on uploaded.net for high downloading speed, you can set up an automatic login to your account whenever Leech catches the link from uploaded.net. No need to have any extensions for web browsers in order to use automatic download link catching.

iGetter provides Mac users with high speed downloading by using segment downloaded for boosting up the speed. With the possibility to resume broken downloads unstable network connection is not a problem anymore.

Maxel is a user friendly OS X downloader aimed to make downloading of files from the most popular transfer protocols, namely http, https, and sftp, very easy. Commonly referred to as a download accelerator, this app splits downloaded files into pieces and downloads pieces simultaneously, thus maximizing the bandwidth. Adding a download task is reduced to a simple drag and drop or paste option.

Progressive downloader is a full-featured download manager. It can resume interrupted downloads, does multi-threaded downloading, browser integration, etc. It has a built-in mirror search option to help find mirrors for large files.

The speed drawback is that, by default, Progressive only splits a download in 3 simultaneous threads. Thus, the speed acceleration is not as significant as in Folx PRO or Download Shuttle.

Xtreme Download manager. Written in Java, Xtreme Download Manager is created to be a simple to use app that can help download different file types faster than with a web browser. It involves dynamic segmentation algorithms and data compression, supports HTTP, HTTPS and FTP, therefore being usable with all kinds of Internet providers.

Xtreme automatically identifies the contents of the file and sorts the items to an appropriate category (documents, compressed, videos, music, applications). Completed and not completed download tasks are placed in two categories for the access, pausing the downloads, restarting them, or refreshing the link.

Download Shuttle is a simple solution for managing multiple downloads and accelerating the transfer speed. It will split your downloads in multiple segments and download them all at once; can handle links with authentication; includes basic but effective link management options.

In the main window of the app you can see the list of your downloads, and the top toolbar has the buttons for basic functions, including the option to add or remove links.

Download Shuttle also offers an inspector window with the detailed info about the status of each segment, and supports QuickLook (access data about the downloaded file).

iNetGet is a part of the "top download manager for Mac" list. It helps you download any file via HTTP, HTTPS, FTP. iNetGet automatically resume interrupted downloads and has a multi-thread download tasks for better speed.
iNetGet can also sniff and download flash media from YouTube and most other video sources.

Top Tips on Choosing the Best Download Manager

Have to be safe, not to contain any malware, adware

Splitting downloads

Scheduling downloads

Web-browser integration

Speed control

Compact and user-friendly interface

Of course there is so much more about every download manager listed and you can always download the ones you think will suit you best and try them out to make sure you've got the best download manager of 2018.

What is a download manager?

A download manager is an app specifically designed for downloading (in some cases also uploading) files from the Internet. Some download managers can also serve a purpose of a torrent client. Even though some basic download tasks can be completed by means of an Internet browser, with larger files or groups of files it is more reasonable to use a download manager, as it can speed up the process of downloading, resume broken downloads, prioritize and schedule download tasks.